Photos of Terry Ave. Office Building - Weber Thompson HQ
Yesterday, I was visiting members of architecture firm Weber Thompson in their headquarters when I decided to pull out my camera and snap some pics for those of you who have never been.
The nearly year-old building is LEED gold core and shell and is eagerly awaiting a LEED platinum certification for its interior. We’ve written about this building numerous times in the past year so I’m going to skip the description and go straight to the photos. For more on the building, read Shawna Gamache’s story on it here, read the building’s blog here, or click tag Weber Thompson below.
Here they are:
View of the inner staircase
View of the staircase through an opposing inner glass wall
Interior view of office space
View of the courtyard inside the building
Outside view of the building
vertical view of building sunshades
Tags: Architecture, project photos, Projects, Seattle, Weber Thompson
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March 11th, 2009 at 3:52 pm
You get a close look at the uninsulated venting louvers on each level? Fresh air is great, but having that much insulated metal on their exterior walls has got to be a killer for the building envelope.
In your second image, you can see the placement of the heaters/radiators directly below these uninsulated metal louvers, and next to a glazed surface. Surely they radiate a large amount of heat directly outside, through the window. I didn’t see any radiators that weren’t placed directly next to windows. I wish someone would take an IR image of the exterior during an early morning to show how much heat must leave this building.
The plantings and landscape around the building and courtyard seem woefully inadequate.
That said, it’s a great effort and a great looking building, but it seems that their systems were designed by several non-connected committees.
March 12th, 2009 at 4:14 pm
Great observations Steve. I’m trying to think of a good retrofit to fix the heater issue. Perhaps a heater-sized sheet of metal with an insulated back, installed right behind the heaters?
Louvers are always a challenge. The pull towards natural ventilation often wins out when people forget we’re in a heating climate. It can be done well, but may not have been done well here.
March 12th, 2009 at 4:56 pm
Great post!!! The Weber Thompson firm looks absolutely gorgeous! Interesting comments above too about the heat escaping. An IR image would indeed be engaging. Thanks for these great photos. Will you post a follow up if they receive a LEED platinum certification for their interior? Thanks for sharing!
March 19th, 2009 at 6:30 pm
Thanks for your interest in The Terry-Thomas. There are some comments the design team would like to respond to
The comment about radiators adjacent to the window wall is a little misguided. When hydronic radiation is used, radiators are virtually always placed along windows to offset the skin load at the perimeter, where the load occurs. The location of the radiators is designed to optimize the overall thermal performance of the space and utilize convection to achieve a balance in temperature. If you didn’t put radiators by the windows (say, instead located them along an interior wall), you might be able to heat the space to a set point, but the operative temperature as experienced by occupants would result in a lot of complaints by those sitting along the perimeter.
As for the louvers: first, they are necessary as the building has no mechanical ventilation. The louvers automatically bleed off excess CO2 in winter mode, and provide night cooling of the slabs in summer mode. It is true they reduce the overall envelope U-value because they aren’t insulated. If the project could have afforded operable windows or insulated louvers it would have improved the overall U-value of the skin. Instead the project compensated for the louvers by providing higher levels of insulation at other locations (e.g., roof, south wall, parking garage). This kind of trade-off is necessary to achieve both energy performance goals and stay within the budget.
Last you need to consider the fact that the integrated design process was seeking to balance many different factors, of which energy use for heating was only one. The benefit of not having to run fans or air conditioning or lights offsets heat from an energy perspective. The building footprint certainly optimizes day lighting and natural ventilation. The higher glazing percentage speaks to both day lighting and to aesthetics. The ample window area and the access to outside air both provide a nicer environment for the occupants. There are social benefits and there are cost benefits.
The proof is in the pudding though, and early indications show that the building performs even better than anticipated 30% to 40% savings from an energy consumption standpoint. We invite you to tour the building and see for yourself.
Peter David Greaves AIA, LEED AP
Principal
Weber Thompson
March 25th, 2009 at 8:47 am
We did receive LEED Platinum certification for the Interior this past week. Thank you, Brando, for asking.
July 5th, 2009 at 2:05 pm
If you re-read the above comments, at the beginning of DJC Green Building Blog » Blog Archive » Photos of Terry Ave. Office Building - Weber Thompson HQ, don’t you notice that you are arguing the same point but differently (I’m referring to air conditioning buildingand therefore contradicting the main point and making this a lot less pertinent? I will come back next Sunday to see how this has evolved.
September 4th, 2009 at 12:57 am
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